Emulator Issues #6878
closedNew Super Mario Bros. Wii random lag (unplayable) in Linux
0%
Description
Game Name?
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Game ID?
SMNP01
What's the problem? Describe what went wrong in few words.
The usually constant frame rate of 60.0 suddenly drops to low 20's and stays there for an arbitrary time. This does NOT happen on the same machine when dual-booted to Windows 7 x64.
What did you expect to happen instead?
Expect to have constant 60 FPS like in Windows.
What steps will reproduce the problem?
[Don't assume we have ever played the game and know any level names. Be as
specific as possible.]
- Start the game, play a while
- Experience slow-motion and sound stuttering
- Restart Dolphin or wait some minutes to resolve temporarily
Please note that sometimes saving a state fixes the lag temporarily as well. It seems really random, not much graphical effects either.
Dolphin 3.5 and 3.5-367 are old versions of Dolphin that have
known issues and bugs, so don't report issues about them and test the
latest Dolphin version first.
Which versions of Dolphin did you test on?
4.0.2
and
4.0.r533.2e1aa64
Does using an older version of Dolphin solve your issue? If yes, which
versions of Dolphin used to work?
Did not try, but using the Windows version does.
What are your PC specifications? (including, but not limited to: Operating
System, CPU and GPU)
Arch Linux
Linux 3.12.4-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Dec 8 21:18:00 CET 2013 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2860QM CPU @ 2.50GHz
MemTotal: 8072264 kB
USED: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
UNUSED: NVIDIA Corporation GF108M [GeForce GT 540M] (rev ff)
Are you using the 32 or the 64 bit version of Dolphin?
64 bit version both, Windows and Linux
Is there any other relevant information? (e.g. logs, screenshots,
configuration files)
No, but I should mention that I tried a few settings to fix the "blue coin issue" (wiki), which did not seem to have any effect to the lag issue. Currently reverted to default settings.
Updated by pauldacheez over 11 years ago
- Status changed from New to Invalid
Ask about this on the forums.
Updated by frankburg9 over 11 years ago
I read in the forums, and the only thing that people say there is:
A: "your computer is to weak"
B: "but it works usually, only sometimes it drops"
A: "whatever, it's to weak, now stfu"
And that's about it. So, what you're saying is, that this is supposed to happen because Dolphin is only made for Windows? And my Linux is to weak? Or what exactly are you pointing me to?
Updated by JMC4789 over 11 years ago
It happens because the graphics drivers on Linux react differently than those on windows. I cannot tell you why/how, but they're less efficient than their windows counterpart. Using your NVIDIA will be better; in fact on Windows it probably automatically chooses it assuming you have optimus or something like that.
Your computer should be powerful enough with EFB2Texture regardless of Windows or Linux because it is a very light game. I tried profiling it but couldn't figure out what was working differently due to a lack of profiling features on windows.
The increased GPU usage could be causing overheating... but it could just be that the integrated drivers are different on Linux. NVIDIA says their drivers are the same on linux, but as I said, that's not what my testing results say.
I hope this is a bit better than "your computer is too slow" because that answer is simply unacceptable in this case. The most likely scenario is that Windows, due to higher use, has far superior graphics drivers, which lighten the load on both GPU and CPU.
Updated by pauldacheez over 11 years ago
So, what you're saying is, that this is supposed to happen because Dolphin is only made for Windows? And my Linux is to weak? Or what exactly are you pointing me to?
I'm saying simply that this is the wrong place to ask this. This issue tracker is for actual bugs; performance issues like this are ubiquitous and not really worth wasting developers' time on. (They mostly use Linux and hate Windows, by the way.)
tl;dr, set up your Nvidia GPU and make Dolphin use it. The Arch Linux wiki has instructions for that.
Updated by frankburg9 over 11 years ago
JMC4789, thank you for your answer. It makes sense and indeed the drivers could be an issue. I'll try to do some profiling myself and hopefully figure something out. Granted this is hard to do for someone else as this may actually only affect my specific hardware.
I actually forced the usage of the integrated card on Windows, and also would like to point out one more time, that while using the integrated GPU the performance on Linux is perfectly fine (talking of minutes of gameplay) until the frame rate dramatically drops instantly and permanently stays there until it instantly comes back up. So this is not the usual "slow-motion" on heavier load.
pauldacheez, even though I appreciate your answers in general, you seem to assume I'm some random whiny user who doesn't know about Bumblebee or Computers at all. I get your point regarding the "wrong place to ask", but how is this a performance issue (or better a configuration issue) when this happens in Linux only, using the very same configuration like in Windows? I didn't use the NVIDIA GPU in Windows (as stated above), and I also tried using it in Linux (Bumblebee). The results were different, but are totally unrelated due to the fact, that I tested with the integrated card in Windows.
Maybe I don't understand your arguments correctly, but in my opinion something bad that happens in only one of two distinct version (Windows vs. Linux here) should be called a platform-dependent bug. Obviously it's not a configuration issue if both versions use the very same configuration. JMC4789 pointed out this is probably a driver issue. So that means there may be a way to tweak the code to work better with Linux drivers in general. Who knows? If this is a wont-fix, it's still a bug, just not a one that can be fixed by Dolphin.
Anyway, as you consider this a waste of time, feel free to ignore it. I was just trying to help improving this project.
Updated by pauldacheez over 11 years ago
I'm not actually a developer, I just moderate the issue tracker. Same for JMC4789. (Though, now that I think about it, we've both made some very minor code contributions.)
Anyway, yeah, I'm pretty sure it's just that the Linux Intel drivers are slower than the Windows ones. (They are made by separate teams, one having less staff than the other.) You may or may not be able to profile it and narrow it down to one GL function; if you do, I'd recommend you contact some of the Intel developers on the Mesa mailing list, as the Dolphin developers obviously have no control over their driver issues.